“The end of work is the biggest fake news circulating today, especially when connected to the narrative of a technology that steals jobs from human beings. On the contrary, it is now clear that it is the lack of technological and organizational innovation that produces unemployment”. This is the clear final judgment of Marco Bentivogli contained in his latest book "The work that will save us“, Edizioni San Paolo, in the bookstore for a few days.
It is not a question of a mannered optimism, but of a extensive reasoning on all aspects of the work problem from the cultural to the organizational-technological ones, to the political-union ones. Work will only save us if we know deeply innovate in all fields, if we abandon the "pessimistic and defeatist narrative about the future" which today seems to prevail in our country because it is brought about by the "many entrepreneurs of fear" who, after having agitated the dangers of migrants and globalisation, today seem to converge on the destruction of employment which it would be – according to them – the consequence of robots.
There are certainly problems. The external context, both technological and international relations, is changing very quickly. And the answer cannot be the one that authoritative exponents of the left such as the former minister Cesare Damiano have proposed several times, according to which the State should act to "slow down" the innovation process in order to safeguard jobs linked to technologies overcome.
Instead, Bentivogli tackles the theme of work by starting to establish some basic concepts of an ethical and legal nature. Citing the teaching of the Church and in particular some of the interventions of Pope Francis, who recalls how only work allows man to fully mature, to develop his personality and social relationships. In short, we cannot imagine a society based solely on the distribution of a basic income, but we must offer everyone the opportunity to work because only in this way can man be given dignity, while stimulating his sense of responsibility.
And it is no coincidence that Bentivogli next to article 1 of the Constitution also recalls article 4. The first states that the Republic is founded on work, which according to the current interpretation means that citizens have the "right" to have a job perhaps by the State, while the second states that every citizen “has the duty to carry out an activity or function which contributes to the material and spiritual progress of society. “Alongside the rights, which when exaggerated resemble abuses, there are also "duties" and that is, the responsibility to actively participate, each according to one's possibilities, in the common good.
Having established the two ethical and juridical pillars, Bentivogli demonstrates that the catastrophists are wrong, and that there is now clear evidence of the positive potential for work and for society as a whole brought about by technological innovations and the opening of markets on a global level. Technology is an ally for humanizing work, for passing from physical to mental fatigue, that is, for transforming the worker from a mere seller of strength to an active participant in an intelligent work management process. However, the introduction of smart working, certainly driven by the COVID pandemic, is establishing itself in many activities where the hierarchical discipline is replaced by the project, where objectives and not just behaviors count.
But to grasp all the potential of these great transformations it is necessary adjust our culture and to make our institutions jump starting from politics, and from the trade unions, to get to our welfare system and above all to the education and training that people must follow throughout their lives. Some cultural change is already evident. Bentivogli recalls how the last document of the Business Roundtable is completely different from what it was ten years ago. At the time it was stated that the only task of companies was to create value for the shareholders while today the welfare of the employees, the protection of the environment, the safeguarding of suppliers are placed in the first places, and then we also arrive at the protection of the interests of shareholders. An important revolution.
But to continue rapidly along the path of this transformation, on the one hand, politics must be able to look at the medium-long term, abandoning the petty demagoguery day by day, while the trade unions, in order to be protagonists of this new phase of work, will have to abandon the old one ideological scheme of frontal confrontation that leads today to fight only battles of image, to cultivate heroic defeat, considered proof of the prevarication of the "masters" against an oppressed class. This is what Landini did when, as soon as he arrived at the helm of the CGIL metalworkers, he rode the dispute against Fiat of Pomigliano, with the end result of making his organization disappear from all the group's factories in Italy. But Landini had achieved his goal: to be the defender of the oppressed, called on TV, consulted by governments to try to pass certain indispensable reforms. In short, a "successful loser" who in fact is now general secretary of the CGIL and drags behind the other two leaders of CISL and UIL who do not dare to say anything other than him.
Instead, Bentivogli argues that the unions should make radical, refounding, regenerative choices, because they will have to be able to negotiate not only the uniform wage for large masses of workers locked up in factories, but they will have to think about the employee as partner of the enterprisewith its autonomy and responsibility. What will count will be training not only the technical one to be constantly updated, but also the one concerning the general culture because more and more people will need critical thinking, they will be called to make decisions, they will have to solve problems with lucidity. Basically the first right of the worker and of the citizen it will be to have suitable tools to confidently face a future, not easy as always, but full of good opportunities for all those who will be able to identify them.
As stated Pope francesco, which also is not kind to the market economy, "work is the most important gift that parents can give their children to help them take off in adult life". It is certainly not the end of the work with all due respect to Jeremy Rifkin, fresh consultant of the 5 Stars!“.
